Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Thick or Thin Ethernet?
Message-ID: <1991Jan16.175003.2978@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3832@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 1991 17:50:03 GMT

In article <3832@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> lairdkb@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kyler Laird) writes:
>The network specialist here advised thick-net.  As I understood, his main
>concern was that the BNC connections occassionally go bad or get knocked out. 
>
>Is this really enough to merit the extra expense and hassle of thick-net?

Depends very much on the environment.  Thick Ethernet is, indeed, much
more robust, partly because your network does not run right to the back
of each user's machine where it can be jerked around or disconnected
at his whim.  The price you pay for thin Ethernet's convenience and low
cost is much greater vulnerability to network disruption if your environment
is not well controlled.

If your users know what they're doing and can be trusted to treat your
cable with respect, or are unsophisticated enough that they treat all
hardware with respect, thin should be fine.  Otherwise, consider thick
or twisted-pair (which runs separate cable from each user's box to a
central hub where faults can be isolated).  We use thin within our machine
room, but plan to go with twisted pair if/when we start doing Ethernet to
users' offices.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry